Page 14 of Road to a Cowboy

“All right.” Austin passed a hand down his face. “Tell me about your new job. What’s got you out so late?”

“I’m bartending at a club. The pay’s pretty good and the tips are nice.”

“You saving up for something?”

Maybe a plane ticket back home?

“No,” Ben said with a laugh. “Just the regular stuff. Rent, food, bus fare.”

“You still like living in London?”

Austin didn’t miss the telling pause. “Yeah.” Nor the forced enthusiasm. “What’s not to like?”

Closing his eyes, Austin leaned his head back against the wall.

Christ. What the hell was keeping his brother so far away when he was so obviously miserable?

“Do you think you might visit soon?” Austin asked quietly. “I miss you, kiddo.”

“Mm. Maybe.”

As noncommittal as always. Funny, because Ben never used to be noncommittal. He’d always known what he wanted.

So what had changed?

“Tell me what’s going on over there,” Ben said in a terrible attempt at a subject change. “How are things with you?”

Austin bit back everything he wanted to say, every plea to come home, and gave his brother what he asked for.

Chapter Five

“Hear that?”

Cal sat on the stairs on the MacIsaacs’ back deck, Austin’s dad on his left, and listened. A bird trilled from a nearby tree.

“That’s a Stellar’s jay,” Paul MacIsaac said. “Here, take a look.” He passed Cal his binoculars and pointed to the right. “It’s in that tree there.”

Cal found it easily, a black and blue bird with a mohawk sitting regally on the highest branch.

Cal had arrived ten minutes ago, toolbox in hand, ready to fix the wobbly doorknob on the bathroom door. Paul had rolled his eyes, claimed he was going to get to it—in his defense, he probably would, just six months from now—and told Cal to join him outside.

“Is this what you do in retirement?” Cal asked, passing the binoculars back. “Birdwatch?”

“It’s how I like to spend my mornings now.”

“How do you identify birds you don’t know? Google?”

Paul chuckled lightly. “Google? Nope. There’s an app for that, son.”

As always, being called son by this man had an incongruous mixture of love and vulnerability jolting through him.

“You record the birdsong or take a picture of the bird,” Paul went on, “upload it to the app, and it identifies it for you.”

“What do you do if it’s raining?”

“Sit inside at the back door.” Paul jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the kitchen door. “Birds are still out in the rain.”

What must it be like to sit around for hours and watch the birds? Cal had been out here for only a few minutes and already he was itching to do something productive. It was kind of nice to sit around and do nothing like he sometimes did with Austin at the end of a long day, but he had a laundry list of things to get done today—starting with the doorknob—and if he didn’t get going soon, he’d still be at it at midnight.

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